How to Use a History Spine to Build Your Study of History

If asked about 15 years ago if I would still be using the same history curriculum today that I started off with undoubtedly I would have answered yes. Laughable uh? Truth of it is, I had no idea what a history spine was {it sounded kind of painful to be honest} let alone how to use a history spine to build my study of history.

Having a passion for keeping history an action packed story in my home, I have used many history spines and am excited about giving you a comparison between them coming up in some summer posts. {Heads Up: I plan to blog as long as I can before I have to stop to move. Realizing that moving overseas may interrupt my summer, I will share my posts about comparing history spines at my first opportunity. I’m giving you the heads up now.}

What I want to focus on today is to explain what is a history spine and how to use one to create a study for your homeschool. Too, I want to share a few resources that I use and are timeless spanning any number of years that you homeschool.

What is a history spine? A simple definition would be that it would be an outline of a topic. The flexible thing about any type of outline is that it can be comprehensive with very specific details and cover a broad scope. On the other hand, they also can be very narrow with limited details and more in line like a scope and sequence. Beyond being an outline about history, a spine can be about any event in history or even about a person. Other than that, you have a whole host of options to choose from.

Look at my list of what a history spine can be:

History curriculum {an easy one}

Living Book

Biography

A primary resource

Textbook {you know not my favorite, but sometimes you need laid out}

Reference book

A unit study either providing just information or one laid out day by day

A history movie

Magazines

Right away you can see that some resources will be easier to use than others. Something like The Story of the World which has a very helpful question and answer format along with activities makes learning about history fun. Whereas something like a history magazine will only have information presented and then you have to decide how to divide that up into manageable teaching lessons each day.

One of my very favorite resources to use over the years by far other than reference books has been a Guide to History Plus.

I put a picture here above so that you can see some of the information it contains. Though it has not been updated in a while, the references to the topics are timeless. For example, under American History: Westward Expansion 1750-1860 it gives ideas for artists, authors, expansion, frontiersmen, immigration, inventors, preachers and unorthodox religious movements. Ideas and topics for studying about a time period do not go out of date. You can see that Guides to History Plus is more like an outline than it is laying out each lesson day by day.

Then there is much more to consider too. Some history curriculum like The Story of the World is light on Bible content. Some may see that as a negative because they may want Bible history folded in for them as they go along. For others, it is a positive because they prefer to tie in their own Bible resources. Just me personally, I always preferred to tie in my own Bible studies and pick/choose which activities I wanted to study deeper on too instead of having it done for me. So, I enjoyed The Story of the World when the boys were little.

Then at the very tip top of the list for history spines when using living books and ones we have read over again and still keep are all the books by Genevieve Foster.

Having history come alive through a story, Genevieve Foster folds in other key events and key characters about a time period. Fleshing out your history curriculum to study about those other topics makes history like the story it is and not a dry presentation of events.

For Mr. Senior 2013 to feed his love of history and because I needed something about the history of Britain, I found a wonderful help by DK called History of Britain & Irelandthat honed in on the different eras.

Some simple tips to building your own study of history is to think about these things,

How much hand holding do I want? Do I want my lesson plans laid out daily or do I want more of a scope and sequence?

Is it a must to cover Bible history? If it is then the next question is do I want Bible history laid out in my curriculum or do I want to lay out my own Bible study course?

Do I feel comfortable adding in my hands-on activities or do I need some presented? Do my kids even care about hands on activities?

Does the history spine cover multiple ages of children? In choosing a history spine, aim to satisfy the needs of the oldest or more advanced learner because it is easier to simplify information for your youngest child at times than it is to find meatier reference for your middle or high school children.

As I mentioned coming up during the summer, I will be sharing different history spines I have used and comparing them to each other. Hopefully, they will help to narrow down some of what you want to use for this next year.

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Comments

Tina, you always seem to be speaking my language! I, too, do not use an out-of-the-box history curriculum. I also use a “spine” to create an outline of what we will learn and simply use quality books for our studies. Sprinkle in a few activities and we are on our way. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed your post!
Blessings,
BrandyBrandy @ Our Thrifty Home recently posted…Math Mammoth Giveaway and Review

I’m really interested in the posts you are going to do on this topic. We love history here, but this year things seemed a little dull (my fault). My son is going into his sophomore year and we are going to do from about 1600-present. I am thinking of changing things up this next year and maybe using a “Turning Points in History” approach.
Can’t wait to see what you have used for spines.
Thanks,
Sarah

Great, I will share things that work and some things that we didn’t like. Some of the resources I didn’t like for any particular purpose other than a bit boring. Sure they get the job done, but who wants that when you love history. Hopefully I can get the posts in earlier than later. That is the plan anyway.

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